A Pride of Kings (The Plantagenets Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  At last, when men had begun to shift their feet and glance at each other, the more impatient muttering among themselves, the quill descended and the name JOHN was written at the end of the parchment while the clerk busied himself setting the great seal to it. There was a resounding yell of triumph from the assembled barons as John rose. He gave them one cold look, and remounting his horse rode in icy silence back to Windsor Castle where he shut himself in his chamber for the rest of the day and refused to admit anyone to his presence.

  A month later he repudiated the Charter. It was wrung from him, he said, by force and in a final defiant gesture he took the Cross, pledging himself to go on crusade so that no Christian man might lift a hand against him.

  William Marshal the younger confronted his father at their London home. ‘This is past enduring! Is he mad to deny all that he has promised? My lord, you must see we cannot keep from war.’

  War?’ his father echoed. ‘Against the King? You know that I will never raise my sword against him.’

  ‘But our charter? I think he never intended to keep his word and now he is foresworn and God will punish him.’

  ‘Then leave it to God in His own time. The archbishop and I will do our best to persuade the King to reconsider but you know him. It will take time and patience.’

  ‘And we have neither,’ his son flashed back. ‘You must be less acute than you used to be, my lord, if you think to persuade that madman. He will not listen to you, nor to any man, and if he will not renew his promises made at Running Meade –’ He broke off. ‘Father, you must join me now. Your word would carry more weight than any.’

  William looked at his angry son, affection warring with stubborn loyalty. ‘Dear lad, do you think this difference between us does not wound me – your mother also? I would be at one with you if I could – indeed I agree with every word of your charter. But I am a Plantagenet man and have been since I was a mere boy. I have the King’s son in my care – one more of old King Henry’s house – and I would be less than nothing to myself if I betrayed, now, all that I have given a lifetime’s service for.’

  The younger William’s eyes filled, but the tears were immediately repressed. ‘Jesu,’ he said in a low voice, ‘what has this wretched King brought us to? But we who oppose him are determined. If he will not meet our terms we must resort to other measures.’

  ‘What measures?’ his father asked uneasily.

  ‘There is King Philip’s son, the Dauphin Louis – a better man than his father, and his wife is a Plantagenet, old King Henry’s grand-daughter. Maybe he would make a better King than –’

  ‘Never!’ William felt the hot blood rise in his own cheeks and his hand went instinctively to his sword hilt. ‘Never! If you are considering that, we shall maybe cross swords, my son.’

  ‘I know. I know and I am sorry for it. But it was you who taught me I must live by my conscience.’ They stared at each other for a moment of silence, and in that silence were aware of Isabel standing on the stairs. She had heard their voices in argument and come down only half dressed, a cloak thrown hastily over her white kirtle. Her face was very pale as she looked at her son.

  ‘Your father will not change his mind once it is made up,’ she said.

  But the younger William was equally stubborn. Without another word he came forward, embraced his father and left the house.

  William sank down in his chair, his eyes fixed on the window that gave out on to a small courtyard. He saw his son mount and ride away under the arch. He sat there for a long time, this last grief hard to bear. Presently Isabel came – no word of reproach for him this time – and she knelt beside his chair, her head on his shoulder while he put his arm about her.

  On a day that reminded William of that livid storm on the Irish Sea he followed a sick and beaten King on a wild ride northwards. It was not the first time he had enacted this scene, but whereas all his sympathy had lain with the Old King he had none for this, the last and most perverse of his sons.

  A long train of knights, men-at-arms and creaking wagons stretched out along the road from Weisbeck, making for the Wash and the crossing over the sands where the Wellstream flowed into the sea.

  ‘We can cross it at low tide,’ Randulph de Blundevill said. ‘Your grace will be in Sleaford by nightfall.’

  John grunted. He had gout in one foot and it was swathed in bandages, supported free from the stirrup, and the skin of his face had an unhealthy yellowish tinge. Every now and again he turned to be sure that the slow, unwieldy wagons were following.

  ‘We would make better time if we left the baggage train to come on at its own pace,’ William had suggested this morning. John had given him a cursory glance, muttering that he ought to know better than to suggest that, and even when William offered to put his own nephew in charge of it, the King refused.

  Now William tried once more. ‘Sire, we should hurry on at a better pace than this. The King of Scots is only too ready to join with your enemies and we must lie between them.’

  ‘Do not tell me what I already know,’ John snapped. There was a burning pain in his large stomach and he felt sick but there was a restlessness, a determination in him now that reminded William of the Old King. ‘I’ll not have the wagons separated from us. If I lose them I lose all. God curse those stupid dolts, can’t they make the horses move faster? Or have they harnessed spavined wrecks to my treasure?’

  ‘The horses are good enough,’ the Earl of Chester said gloomily. ‘It is the loads, my lord. They are too heavy. My lord Pembroke is right, we should have left some of those chests with the monks at Waltham.’

  John ground his teeth. ‘For the French to plunder? God’s wounds, no!’ His face convulsed with rage and his voice rose. Will none of you support me, none of you see what must be done? Jesu, what friends I have!’

  No one answered him and the slow procession moved on at a pace that tried William’s patience almost to breaking point. With all his long experience he was sharply aware of their danger. For months now there had been war in England. The rebel barons, unable to wring any concessions from John, unable to believe anything he said, had – as the younger William said they would – called for help from France. At this moment the Dauphin Louis and his troops were in Kent, marching northwards having by-passed Dover Castle where Hubert de Burgh held out for the King. John became like a cornered bull. He struck out at any of the rebel levies wherever he might find them, laying waste the countryside indiscriminately, burning crops, slaying innocent peasants, blind to the fact that it was his own land he was despoiling. He would not listen to William yet he clung to him, to his loyalty, knowing that there were few such men left to him. His trusted half-brother Salisbury had been captured in France and as negotiations for his release were still going on he was sadly missed by the King’s company.

  William wondered if together he and Salisbury might have turned John from his suicidal course, the last and most crazy order being to bring most of his treasure, crown and sceptre, gold and jewels, swords and goblets and plate, chests of coins, all packed into the wagons which every day the King checked and counted. If it had been left in safe hands, in the royal vaults at Winchester or with the trustworthy monks of Waltham, they might have made the necessary speed, but John would not listen.

  Throughout this wretched time William had felt miserably alone, none of his old friends with him, nor his sons, for William was still with the rebels and Richard he had sent to France to safeguard his inheritance at Longueville. Only his nephews and John d’Erleigh remained of those he most cared for. And in all this bloody campaign he had done only one thing against John’s interests. When the Earl of Chester went to besiege a party of rebels at Worcester, knowing that his son was there and well aware of de Blundevill’s methods, he had contrived to send a message to William to warn him. He was thankful the boy had escaped the city and thankful too that Isabel and the younger children were at Exeter with the Queen, far from the area of any fighting.

  There was a
grey lowering sky today, heavy clouds sweeping up, and he surmised there would be rain before nightfall. They had reached the shallows where it was possible to cross, and the wide sands looked peaceful enough. The wind was blowing fresh and salty from the sea, the flat marshy countryside boasting only a few stunted trees, bent in the direction of the prevailing wind. The guards ahead entered the waters first, the horses’ hooves squelching in the soft sand and mud, and the King and his companions followed. William wrapped his cloak about him against the stiffening October wind, cold from the North Sea, and soon they were moving up the higher ground on the further shore.

  It was not a place William knew and as they turned back to watch the wagons entering the water he glanced towards the opening of the estuary to the sea and there saw the tide moving in to meet the outflowing of the river.

  ‘Look,’ he said and pointed. ‘The tide has turned, sire.’

  ‘They’ll be across in time,’ John muttered. He swung his horse’s head round and jerking his gouty leg, cursed. For Christ’s sake, move. Are they all stupid, mindless churls? Move, damn you!’

  The men in the water were doing their best, whipping the horses, but the poor beasts, struggling with loads beyond their strength, heaved in vain as the wheels sank into the treacherous sands. Only two wagons had reached the safety of firm ground.

  ‘Go back,’ de Blundevill shouted and calling to a soldier ordered him to go down and command the rest to retreat to the shore behind.

  ‘No! No!’ the King countermanded. ‘I’ll not have it. They must cross before the tide comes – there’s time yet.’

  ‘Holy God!’ It was the King’s cousin, Earl William of Warenne, who pointed to the east, the colour ebbing from his face. ‘Look, my lord – look there. What in God’s name is happening?’

  The tide was suddenly running with a force no one had suspected, though the sullen peasants who had been robbed to feed them as they passed could have told them. It came sweeping in to meet the river in a headlong clash, the water deepening every moment, the swirling and threshing made worse today by the rising wind, the approaching storm.

  In minutes the shallows were lost. The horses struggled desperately in their harness, some of the drivers clung still to the reins, but others leapt in terror into the current and were swept away. Wagons toppled, boxes burst open, gold plates and jewels, chests of silver, all the insignia of royalty burst out, floating ludicrously for a moment before being immersed in tossing foam. Horses sank, the wagons after them, as the angry sea beat in against the river; the tide, the wind, and the first driving rain winning a hideous victory.

  In what seemed an incredible and horrific onslaught of nature, lasting so short a time, almost all of the baggage train was gone leaving a pathetic flotsam, a few bodies that tossed wildly until they too disappeared, until nothing remained of all the King’s treasure.

  John sat his horse, ashen and mesmerised, shivering with cold, his eyes fixed on one stray goblet bobbing on the waves until at last that too disappeared from sight. His attendants watched him, equally horror-struck, until at last he turned away and rode north through the mist and rain.

  The Earls of Chester and Pembroke had always disliked each other heartily, but now they were forced into an odd comradeship as it soon became clear that John was not only suffering from shock at this final blow but was gravely ill as well. At Sleaford he had a high fever, but when William suggested the next morning that he should remain in bed in the castle there, he groaned and swore, vomited and then called for a horse litter to take him on to Newark.

  ‘He is dying,’ de Blundevill said and William nodded. He had seen that look on men’s faces often enough to recognise it now in the King’s bloated features.

  At Newark John was carried into the Bishop’s Palace, the storm still raging, wind and rain beating at the shutters. He asked the Bishop to hear his confession and the two Earls withdrew to an outer chamber.

  William sat down wearily by the fire. He seldom wore full armour now except for battle, preferring a padded gambeson and a tunic. He suffered from stiffness in the back and this last ride through the driving rain had set his bones aching.

  De Blundevill found some wine and poured it. ‘If he is to confess all his sins we are like to be here for some time,’ he said and laughed coarsely. ‘Long enough for us to have dinner, eh?’

  He stumped off, shouting for the steward, but William went instead to the chapel where he knelt for a long time, thinking less of the dying King than of England, of Pembroke that he had come to love so much, of Caversham and his other lands, of Isabel and the children who would inherit all he had won. The King’s heir was a nine-year-old boy and might bring worse feuding upon this poor land, and William braced himself, praying that despite his years he might still do something to bring back order and peace; he had known little of it in his own lifetime.

  Presently a frightened clerk came to say the King wanted him. He went back and found John lying quieter, though his breathing was laboured, and there was a nauseating smell of sickness and decay in the room.

  ‘William.’ He stretched out a hot, sweating hand. ‘You have never failed my house and now I leave my son in your hands. Care for him – go to him at once – promise me.’

  ‘I swear it,’ William said. It seemed to him that all the rites of Holy Church, the holy water sprinkled here, could not wash away the sense of evil about this man. Yet a crucifix lay on his breast and his other hand plucked at it.

  ‘Your son shall be King,’ William said steadily. ‘You can be at peace for him, sire.’

  John’s eyes closed. William glanced at the Bishop, who shook his head. Suddenly the King’s lids rose for the last time. ‘Why did nobody tell me about the tide? If we had known – all my treasure – all lost. God was angry – or was it the devil?’ His face convulsed once more and then his head fell to one side.

  The Bishop laid an expert hand on the King’s breast, touched his mouth and began the prayers for the dead.

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ de Blundevill muttered under his breath and then hastily crossed himself.

  In the great cathedral of Gloucester the young King Henry III was crowned by the Bishop of Winchester in the presence of the few nobles who were quickly gathered there before the throne could be offered to Louis of France.

  The royal crown was at the bottom of the Wash so a plain gold circlet was set on Henry’s bright head and when it was done, William Marshal held him high to face the assembled barons.

  ‘My lords,’ he cried out, ‘this boy is truly King of England, crowned and anointed. Do not visit on him the sins of his father. By God’s grace he will be a good King to us.’

  There was an answering shout and the young King, set on his feet again, held out his hands as the Earl Marshal knelt before him, the first to do him homage. ‘My lord,’ he said in his clear boy’s voice, ‘I thank God that I have you to advise me – by His mercy we will do well together.’

  William kissed the small hand. He was seventy-two and this child was nine and it seemed to him it would be better if other, younger men took on the task.

  But a few days later, at a great meeting where all but the most recalcitrant lords deserted their French allies and came to pay homage to the new King, with one voice they all united in insisting that no man was fitter than the Earl of Pembroke to be Regent of England during the King’s minority. Even the surly Earl of Chester added his voice, swearing he would serve under the Marshal, and a final exhortation came from the Papal Legate.

  ‘My lords,’ William protested, ‘I am too old. I have seen too much and I am tired.’

  One by one they pressed about him, friends and late enemies alike, his own sons and sons-in-law among the most vociferous, refusing to listen to his reasons nor to pay account to his years. For a moment he ceased to hear their voices, his mind going back over many of those years.

  Four kings he had served and now a fifth commanded his loyalty, and he remembered that other King, Stephen, w
ho had prevented a group of ruthless men from hanging him. Stephen had preserved him for a long life culminating in this final achievement, and he put up his hand once more to touch the amethyst brooch, feeling the gems fashioning the sprig of planta genesta. He remembered Queen Eleanor at her loveliest and he an untried lad without a penny in his pocket. Never had he dreamed then that he would become Regent of England, virtual ruler of his country, and the trust of these tough fighting barons stirred him. He wondered what the Old King would have thought of it, that man of tremendous vitality. He thought too of his young master, so full of promise, whom he had loved and who had died so tragically in his arms, of Richard whom he had never loved but deeply respected, John whom he had served despite his personal dislike.

  Now it was all to begin again and for a moment he shrank from it. He had thought now that the new King was crowned perhaps he could retire to Pembroke or Caversham and spend his days quietly, enjoying things he had never had time for before, but this dream was to have no reality. He must bring order and peace back to the country, and surely if the task was to be laid on him God would give him the strength for it?

  He looked down at the little King, seated in a great chair, scarlet legs not reaching the floor, and in a sudden lift of the head saw a remarkable likeness to his master of long ago. He had never cared for any man as he had cared for the Young King and now it was as if he was to serve him once more in this boy who was so like him.

  Glancing up at the gallery where his wife and daughters sat with the widowed Queen he saw Matilda’s face alight with pleasure, but there was anxiety as well as pride on his wife’s well-loved features and he gave her a reassuring smile.

  ‘Well, my lords,’ he said at last, ‘it seems it is not yet time for me to take my old bones to the fireside. If it is your will that I accept this high office, so be it. What years I have left,’ he smiled down at the eager boy, ‘are yours to command sire.’